We drove down after writing a new song and got to Reading at 4:30am, camped just behind our stage. Next day Ewan goes out flyering before our gig, puts the flyers in a bin and just makes it rain instead. We smashed the packed tent:
An all nighter of debauchery later and even the flocks of geese overhead start sounding like a clan of asthmatic joggers. I’ve got a gig poetrying at midday and Slurpy’s passed out in the middle of the path in guest camping. I try to move him and cover him up so he won’t get too sunburnt but the t-shirt over his face just makes him look dead. I nearly throw up with the effort of the gig, get back to Slurps and find out a fire engine came along, was stopped in its tracks by slumbering Slurps, couldn’t wake him up and the firemen had to get out and move him. We might change our name to Woken Up By Firemen.
We hallucinate our way up to Leeds and stand in front of Radiohead. Some girl from Middlesborough tells me Princess Beatrice just touched her gash (her words) then hitches her skirt up, squats in front of me and pisses. The gig the next day is wicked and the crowd are well up for it:
We get interrupted mid-interview by somebody asking if we can play the BBC Introducing stage for Alan Raw in 15 minutes as somebody’s dropped out. We do it, even more fun-ly than the first gig and the crowd are wicked:
Then back on the debauchery. Lee takes his trousers down in an interview and falls asleep and Slurpy makes some ironic comment about Krish being the token. Basically we’re on a charm offensive, or an offensive, anyway.
Later on I’m stood next to the Jamaican Bob Sleigh team and there’s a helicopter going over Jamie T’s shoulder. Now whatever you say about Mr T. (that’s the musician not the guy who works for Snickers) he does a cracking job of looking like 1995. The snickers guy’s more of an ‘80s man.
After Faith No More Jess Hatches a plan to kneel down behind Gaz while I push him over. I refuse. She insists. I refuse again. She insists harder and given she’s Gaz’s girlfriend I decide it’s ok, but I don’t want to do the pushing cause I still feel bad, so I say I’ll be the inanimate object he’s pushed over, and she can push, thus alleviating my guilt. I go and kneel down behind Gaz and Jess does nothing. Gaz stumbles over me backwards, falls really heavily and can’t get up, saying he heard a crack or something. I feel terrible. Jess asks what I was doing. I ask why she wasn’t pushing. She says I got the wrong man, she was saying Slurpy all along as it was his birthday, not Gaz, and Slurpy’s still oblivious to the whole thing. I feel bad but later on, when Gaz gets stranded in the mud on one welly, it doesn’t stop me laughing long and hard enough to warm my belly with lactic acid.
Some geezer stops me to ask if I can feel his toes. It’s not a request, just an enquiry as to whether I’m also aware of the sensation in his lower phalanges. Then we’re sledging down a mud-hill after dancing to a tree-house DJ whose main aim seemed to be to make us really aware that he was DJing by letting one track completely finish and allowing a couple of seconds of silence before playing the next one. Here's some video footage from before we started forgetting to film:
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